Exhibits are displayed in front of a donor wall at the Lewis County Historical Museum Wednesday morning in Chehalis.
Jason Mattson adjusts his mask as he walks through the Lewis County Historical Museum Wednesday morning in Chehalis.
The Lewis County Historical Museum is located at 599 NW Front Street in Chehalis.
A sign reads ‘Please sanitize your hands,’ at the enterance to the Lewis County Historical Museum Wednesday morning in Chehalis.
Alongside all other businesses, museums throughout the country are feeling the effects of the COVID-19 related shutdown as they had to close for the first part of their busy season. But museums in Lewis County, which opened after the county moved to phase three of Gov. Jay Inslee’s reopening plan, say they are not at risk of closure.
“I know when people think about economic impacts, museums are down there low on the list of priorities, but when you realize the number of people that are going to come and see the collection of treasures in our community — it’s so important to support all of our local museums because you don’t want to lose them,” said Chip Duncan, director of the Veterans Memorial Museum in Chehalis.
In May of this year, the Mount Rainier Railroad and Logging Museum had to close for the foreseeable future due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the inability to continue to fund the operation, according to a statement made by American Heritage Railways Inc. The Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum in Everett and the World of Speed Motorsports Museum in Oregon both had to close as well.
Directors at the Veteran’s Memorial Museum, the Lewis County Historical Museum, and the King Agriculture Museum all say that although the museums have lost revenue due to the shutdown, they are not at risk of closing.
“There has been a lot of museums that have had to close down because they haven’t been able to make ends meet, and the tragedy is that you’ve got collections of things that are all in one location and if you lose that — you lose that for the entire community and the entire region,” said Duncan.
He said that normally about half of the museum patronage is from out of state but recently it has been mostly local people looking for something to do to get out of the house. The first day the museum was open after Lewis County was approved for phase three, about 30 people came to the museum.
“For the summer months, we have not seen the same number of people that we normally do,” Duncan said.
He explained that when a museum liquidates all the artifacts and items that were on display get sold off, end up in various locations and disappear from public view.
“We want to preserve these stories and it doesn’t do anyone any good if these stories are never told in a venue where people can hear them and that’s what all museums are — they try to tell and preserve the story of life in a community from times past that nobody can experience anymore,” Duncan said.
The Veterans Memorial Museum funds operations through donations, fundraising and admissions.
“We made some good decisions in the past about how to spend our money so we can continue operating and we were able to keep paying people through the shutdown. I know that’s not the standard in the museum field,” Duncan said.
The King Agriculture Museum, located at 213 E. Maple St. in Centralia, opened this year on July 2 and has existed in Lewis County since 2015.
David King said he opened the museum five years ago because his collection of tractors and antique agriculture equipment has gotten so large that he was going to have to either start selling some of it or open a museum, and to many people’s delight he chose the latter.
The King Agriculture Museum had to open about a month later than they normally do.
“Most people know that we open on June 4 and this year we didn’t because of COVID, so we lost the month of June,” said King.
He said that about half of the people the museum sees come through are from outside of Lewis County.
“People are happy that we are there and they don’t have a problem wearing a mask and if they’re the only ones in the museum we say ‘hey if you do the distancing thing and you’re out there by yourself you don’t have to wear your mask,’” said King.
King said that the revenue from the museum doesn’t even cover the annual light bill so he pays out of pocket for most of the expenses and he owns the building.
“I tell people, you don’t have a museum for money — you have to have a passion. So we won’t be shutting down because of COVID unless the governor orders to move back to phase two,” he said.
A self-proclaimed farm boy, King was raised in Onalaska and was involved in almost all aspects of farming while growing up. He said he started collecting antique farm equipment out of passion.
“The people that you meet are incredible, they are totally appreciative of what’s in the museum. I have people come back every year and say they notice something new that they didn’t see before,” said King.
The Lewis County Historical Museum is now open but Executive Director Jason Mattson, who has been with the museum for three years, said that museum attendance for the summer season has been lower than past years.
“Our admissions have been down, obviously because of the three-month shutdown, and attendance is less than half of what it should be for the year,” he said.
Mattson said that the museum plans to hold a membership drive in the near future and online fundraisers. He said that recently about 90 percent of museum visitors have been from out of town.
“I don’t think the museum will close but we have really had to cut some hours and tighten our belts on certain improvements we’ve wanted to do,” said Mattson.
The Veterans Memorial Museum is open Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The King Agriculture Museum is open Thursday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Lewis County Historical Museum Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
